In his head, he had already picked the men—Kerse’s squad—men whose discretion he knew he could trust. He continued: “I will give you a list.”

She sipped her tea, leaned her head against his calf. “What will be on this list?”

“Names and locations, mostly. Some technology and its location.”

He had pulled it all from the Imperial database while she had been sleeping.

“What do you want me to do?”

“Find everyone and everything you can on that list and bring it to this ship.”

She sat up straight, looked up at him. The question was in the pools of her eyes.

“The people are to be made prisoners,” he said. “The technology confiscated as spoils of war.”

The question did not leave her eyes. She gave it voice.

“Why me, beloved? Why not your Sith?”

He ran his hand over her left lekku, and she closed her eyes in pleasure.

“Because I know I can trust you,” he said. “But I’m not yet entirely sure whom else I can trust. Not until things progress a bit further.”

She opened her eyes and pulled away from him. Concern creased her forehead. “Progress further? Are you in danger?”

“Nothing that I cannot deal with. But I need you to do this.”

She leaned back into him, her arm draped over his legs. “Then I will do it.”

The smell of her clouded his thoughts and he fought for clarity. “Tell no one else of this. Report it only as a routine transfer of cargo.”

“I will. But … why are you doing all of this?”

“I’m simply taking precautions. Go, Eleena.”

“Now?”

“Now.”

She rose, bent, and kissed first his left cheek, then his right.

“I will see you soon. What are you going to do while I am gone?”

He was going to disobey Angral’s orders yet again and return to Coruscant. “I am going hunting.”

THE SMELL OF SMOKE and melted plastoid hung thick in the air. Aryn and Zeerid picked their way on foot through the streets and autowalks of Coruscant. Aryn was conscious of the fact that level after level of urbanscape extended into the depths below her. She realized that she had never put a boot to solid ground on Coruscant. Not really. Instead she, like so many, simply trod the network of walkways and duracrete streets on the surface level, unaware of most that went on in the lower levels. She had lived on the planet for decades but did not know it well.

The sun pulled itself into the sky, slowly, as if it did not want to reveal the ruin. Her eye fell on a distant, isolated skyrise that leaned precipitously to one side, the attack having damaged its foundation. It, like all of Coruscant, like the entirety of the Republic, had been knocked off kilter.